A century ago, the rituals surrounding the celebration at the end of October emphasized love. Newspapers recommended parlor games that promised to reveal romantic fortune. Even the cast of characters was more oriented toward matters of the heart.

“Halloween in the early 20th century had far less emphasis on blood, gore and scary monsters, and much more emphasis on courtship, romance and the opportunity for love,” Daniel Gifford, the former manager of museum advisory committees for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History explained in a museum blog post last year.

“In fact, the image of Cupid was often interspersed among the more familiar black cats, witches and jack-o’-lanterns.”

For Halloween maybe you and your spouse can play a fun Victorian game like snap apple! The image above will give you an idea of how to get started — it’s a seasonal bifecta! You can also check out the sexy Halloween games we posted way back in 2014, and leave your own ideas in the comments below.

We get many emails with variations on the question: how can I my spouse and I be more sexually spontaneous? Ironically, a little preparation can help! Put some lube and wet wipes in your purse, and you’ll be ready for spontaneity any time.

But how do you actually be spontaneous? If spontaneity doesn’t come naturally to your sex life, you can introduce a bit of randomness to help things along. We often use dice to make random choices and inspire our imaginations. Nothing is worse than two people both saying, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” You don’t have to obey the dice, but you can use the random rolls to get your creativity flowing. Here are a few examples:

Those tables give you ideas for what and how to have sex, but the key to spontaneity is when. So here’s an idea for randomizing the time you have sex: use a deck of playing cards. Here are two possible methods.

Method 1: Draw a random card when you wake up in the morning. If the card is a number, an ace, or a jack (11), that’s the hour of the day you’re going to have sex. If it’s a king or queen, then the husband or wife has to secretly pick a time to ambush the other spouse and initiate. Advanced mode: a heart means to get naked, a diamond means to start with oral, a club means you have to use at least three positions, and a spade means it’s a quickie and draw again afterwards.

Method 2: Bring the deck of cards with you and set an alarm to go off every hour. When the alarm goes off, draw a card. If it’s a number between 2 and 9, do nothing and draw again the next hour. Otherwise:

Ten or Jack: Within the next hour you must have some serious physical foreplay for at least five minutes, but not to orgasm. Making out, fingering, oral sex, breast play. Get hot and heavy, but don’t finish.

Queen: The wife picks an appropriate location and initiates sex within the next hour.

King: The husband picks an appropriate location and initiates sex within the next hour.

Ace: Drop whatever you’re doing and immediately find a place to have sex.

Advanced mode: a heart means to get naked, a diamond means to start with oral, a club means you have to use at least three positions, and a spade means the initiator needs to add an extra kink (examples: spanking, tickling, teasing).

What do you and your spouse do to enhance spontaneity? Share some tips in the comments!

As you may have noticed, Sexy Corte and I really enjoy creating and playing sexual games. We enjoy games in general, and sex games are great foreplay. In the end, everyone wins and gets to have sex! It can be fun to raise the stakes a little by offering a prize to the winner, but let me start off by recommending something that you don’t use for a prize:

Don’t ask for something your spouse won’t enjoy giving.

It’s very temping to suggest, “If I win, you have to *blank*”, where *blank* is something you want that your spouse just doesn’t like. Asking for a prize like this is manipulative, and it will taint the whole game. Don’t try to use a game to coerce your spouse.

Instead of using prizes to get something from your spouse that she doesn’t want to give, we suggest that you pick rewards that are amusing, embarrassing, teasing, or even non-sexual. It’s important to note: for a given game, the prize doesn’t have to be the same for each spouse. He may want one thing if he wins, and she may want something else. Both spouses should agree up front to the prizes, to ensure they’re relatively fair.

So, without further ado, here are a few ideas for giving the winner something special. (Instead of a loser, I’m going to call the spouse who doesn’t win the giver.)

Do it longer. Winner receives some sex act for longer than usual and luxuriates in it. This could be 30 minutes of oral sex, a full-body massage, or extended teasing or edging.

For a week. Winner receives some sex act every day for a week. Not something the giver dislikes, but something the winner wants more of. Maybe it’s a certain preferred position like doggy style, a time of day, a location (or public place), sleeping naked (or almost), or blow jobs every day. Whatever it is, the winner shouldn’t have to remind the giver — be proactive!

Giver initiates. This is probably a prize for the higher-drive spouse: the giver has to initiate sex. Maybe just once, maybe for a week, or whatever seems fair. The giver needs to be looking for opportunities to initiate sex faster than the winner gets horny.

Put it on. The winner picks an outfit and the giver puts on a show putting it on. The clothes can be something sexy to wear around the house, or a favorite outfit that the winner wants the giver to wear on a date or to church. The winner may also choose to dress up the giver in something ridiculous or embarrassing and go out in public, but make sure to set the ground rules before the game.

Take it off. The winner picks some music and the giver performs a striptease or sexy dance. The giver should really go slow and ham it up.

Yes sir! Or yes ma’am! The giver calls the winner sir, ma’am, or some other honorific in private for a day or a week. You could also pick some other show of submission for the giver, such as: standing whenever the winner enters the room, sitting at the winner’s feet instead of on the furniture, or asking permission before leaving the room. It’s a submission game, and it’s the giver’s responsibility to remember and obey the rules.

Say please. The giver must ask permission to orgasm, and then wait to receive it. Ask, beg, plead, give the winner a show.

Pamper me. Giver treats the winner to some grooming and TLC. The giver can trim the winner’s nails, wash her in the shower, rub her with lotion, massage her body, head, and feet, shave her legs or his face, or cut his hair. Husbands, you may think this prize is just for wives, but try it out!

Roleplay. Winner picks a scenario to roleplay with the giver, and the giver gives it all she’s got. Dress the part, do the accent, get into it, ham it up.

Basically, the concept is simple – she picks (or randomly chooses) a specific color of panties to wear that day / night when she wants to do something specific. Then she figures out the “menu” and sends it to me via a text or hands me a dirty note. This is my signal that the game is on. It might read:

White means slow and gentle

Red means go hard and fast, don’t worry about me

Blue means lick me til I cum

Grey means I want your cum all over my face

Green means I want something in my ass but I’m afraid to ask

Black means I want to tie you up

Polka Dots means use a toy

No panties means anything goes

Etc. (you can kink up or kink down based on your personal preferences)

Then when we get suitably in the mood, I just pick up on what she’s feeling based on her choice of underwear without ever having to awkwardly discuss how kinky she is feeling that particular night.

You can add a little mystery by getting dressed in the dark, or by making your husband work to catch a glimpse of your panties after sending him the menu.

Sexy Corte and I have been inching our way through the Harry Potter movies in the evenings after the kids go to bed. We both enjoy the movies and the books, but SC is a super-fan. The movies are entertaining but confusing, and after we shut off the television it seems I’ve always got a million questions to ask SC about the series while we are getting ready for bed. So, I figured, why not make a sex game out of it?

I found some Harry Potter trivia on the internet (not hard to do!) and picked out a bunch of questions. If Harry Potter isn’t your thing, pick something else. Maybe Star Wars trivia for the husband? Bible trivia? Civil War history? Prepare the questions (and answers) in advance and print them out or put them in a document on your phone/tablet.

In addition to the trivia questions, I gathered the rest of the required toys. When I’m planning to do something elaborate, especially something that involves restraints, I try to make sure that all the toys are prepared and positioned in advance so that we don’t lose momentum while we’re playing. In this case, the toys were simple: wand vibrator and egg vibrator.

Then I stripped SC down and tied her near the edge of the bed with her legs spread using our under-mattress restraint system (which is always prepared for use). I intended to use a blindfold, but it turned out to be more fun to watch her face. Once I had SC tied down I applied the wand vibrator and explained the rules.

Tie, Tease, Trivia Rules.

I apply the vibrator to you and ask you trivia questions. If the husband is the contestant, the wife can use her hand and mouth to stimulate him. The goal is to provide constant, low-level stimulation to tease the contestant while she tries to focus on the questions.

When you get one right, I go down on you. This is the motivation for the contestant to stay focused on her task. The frequent swapping between vibrator and mouth drove SC crazy, along with the tip of my finger teasing penetration. If the husband is the contestant, the wife can use both her mouth and lady bits to reward correct answers.

When you get one wrong…. I had considered using ice to penalize incorrect answers, but decided against it. Your mileage may vary, depending on the temperament of your contestant. When SC got one wrong I feigned great disappointment, shook my head, and ran the tips of my fingers along her inner thighs. I’d ramp up her stimulation and then remove it briefly, to her great frustration.

You may not orgasm until you score 10 points. Ramp up the stimulation and remind her that she isn’t allowed to come yet. Make light conversation and push her to the edge while you slowly peruse your set of questions. Make her beg for the next question. “Do you want an easy one or a hard one?” Make her keep score. “How many points do you have now? I forget. Are you sure?” Award bonus points and extra licking when she earns it, and take a point and stimulation away if she misses an easy one. Take your time.

Eventually, you win. When you’re ready to end the game, tell her that the questions are over. Ask her how many points she earned. Ramp up the simulation. “Do you think you’ve earned an orgasm?” Make her say yes, she’s earned it. Praise her performance under pressure. “You did great, sweetie. I think you earned an orgasm. Go ahead and get it.” Then give it to her.

“You must think I’m a huge dork,” Sexy Corte laughed at the beginning of the game. Afterwards she asked, “Do you think you can find more Harry Potter questions?”

Yep, we like making sexy dice games you can enjoy with your spouse! Tonight it’s Sexy Body Part Twister. (Here’s a PDF version.) Not every body part combination is directly sexual (stomach to foot?!) but you’ll have fun touching each other and getting warmed up. The best part is that you can win any time you want!

Step 3: The Storyteller either rolls the dice or loads the story generator to get her challenge. Start telling the story — make it naughty and coherent.

Step 4: The Distractor uses his mouth, tongue, hands, fingers, or sexy movements to distract the Storyteller from her task. Advanced mode: every time the Storyteller says “uhhhh” or stalls she gets a swat on the butt.

Step 5: When the story is done, swap roles. Repeat until you give up and have sex.

It’s a simple game that adds a little challenge to your encounter with your spouse. Let us know how it goes for you!